I have tried therapy on and off for a while now. People would always get frustrated with me and tell me to "get therapy," but I never knew what I was actually supposed to be there for. And I tried a service like BetterHelp before (can't remember what this one was called), but it just sucked ass and I'm not sure if the people on there were even licensed professionals.
I finally started going consistently with this one therapist, but I frequently get frustrated with her for not giving me actual coping skills or techniques. One of her favorite things to ask me is "how can you deal with X?" And I get frustrated and say "I don't know." Because if I fucking knew I wouldn't be in therapy. She seems to do a more meandering talk therapy style thing with vague ideas of DBT and CBT thrown in there. She's not giving me enough skills to not get fired at work. She helped me go through a difficult time, but now that that's over, I'm back to square one.
So I found a therapist who specifically states she does DBT. Over time I have learned that my core issue is emotional dysregulation which is treated by DBT. She told me she follows this one workbook. I got the book. It's great! It gives you a zillion and one coping skills. But after having several sessions with her, I notice that she spends the entire time just going "in chapter 4, this happens. Then in chapter 8, this happens" while my eyes just glaze over. Today the session ended 35 minutes early because she only vaguely contributed to me talking about a problem I had today.
I have been seeing both therapists concurrently until my deductible resets in January.
I just am so endlessly frustrated with the entire mental health industry. I've seen so many different therapists. I've really tried to do any exercises that they have given me. I've tried multiple different psych meds (trying a new one now actually!).
Nothing works. Nothing has changed about me. I'm the same person with the same problems. And nothing I seem to try makes a lick of difference. I try so hard. I try a zillion different things...exercise, getting good sleep, eating right, therapy, meds...nothing changes me. Nothing helps me.
What in the everliving fuck am I missing? Do I have to go through 30 different therapists before I can find one that can help me? Am I just doing therapy "wrong"??? What am I supposed to be doing here?
Through all this, I've found that telling someone to "go to therapy" is almost offensive...it just absolves others from caring about you and makes it sound like you're not willing to do the base effort in bettering yourself.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for taking the time to read.
All I can say from personal experience:
I had to find a therapist who specialized in cult survivors. The other ones I just traumatized. Keep searching if you haven't found the right fit for you.
Daily meditation helped me as much as the right meds did, and in a totally different way. The meds make it easier to meditate, but meditation let me become the kind of person who doesn't automatically react negatively to stimuli.
It takes 21-66 days to re-route neural pathways. So now that you've gotten a basic overview from reading the book, maybe picking one thing out of it to work and focus on for 2 months straight will help more than trying to juggle all of the tips simultaneously.
Emotional disregulation is a hard one. Have you seen examples irl of ppl reacting to things in a more regulated way that you can admire and emulate? If so, it might be cool to pretend for a minute that you are that person in that situation, reacting the way they did, and try it on for size, feel how different it is, and mentally practice in made up situations reacting with calmness.
Good luck ๐
Yeah thank you. It's tricky because with this second therapist I actually did search with my new found knowledge of what my issue is. But it doesn't seem to be panning out.
I'm just a bit disappointed that this second woman doesn't say anything else in the sessions beyond "hey I love chapter 7! You're gonna love chapter 4! Here's a spoiler from chapter 6!" Even when I try to relate something to my personal experience she is just like "yup I love that technique in that chapter" or "I'm not a huge fan of that particular technique in that chapter" It's kind of like talking to a wall.
The book is absolutely fantastic in that it actually does give you ideas of what to do, but yeah they are a bit overwhelming.
I like your idea of just practicing a couple at a time and figure out if they are working for me. The second lady essentially gave me the same tip so I'm gonna try to be a bit more focused with it.
Cool, let me know how it goes, it turned out to be a good experiment for me, so I'm crossing my fingers for you!